Nameh Farhangestan
Year:2011 | Volume:11 | Issue:4 (44)|Papers Count:12

As against the Russian orientalist K.I. Cajkin and the followers of his view who hold that there was only one Asadi, Ali b. Ahmad, who composed Both the epic Garsasp-name and the Monazerat, the author of this paper is of the opinion that there were two Asadis: Ali b. Ahmad, the son, who composed the epic Garsasp-name and wrote the lexicon, Logat-e Fors; and Ahmad b. Mansur, the father, who composed the 'Monazere' eulogies.By bringing to light the identity of the rulers to whom the eulogies were addressed, the author has solved the long standing problem which began with Dowlatsah's statement that Asadi was Ferdowsi's teacher, and which was revived in late nineteenth century by Hermann Ethe’s "Uber persische Tenzonen".

It is about 80 years now since the first history of Persian literature was written. During this time, the theory of literature historiography has been constantly evolving. It is now the right time we take an analystic-critical approach to the historiography of Persian literature. This paper is meant to provide a theoretical framework for such an undertaking. Writing histories of Persian literature, contrary to the common belief, is rooted in the writings dating back to the time before the emergence of the 'tazkare' (biography). The early histories are divided into two branches: those that follow an eastern-traditional model and those that follow a western-modern model. In this paper, the writer first presents a brief history and then discusses methodological shortcomings of the present histories of Persian literature.

The purpose of this paper is to briefly explain Mowlavi's views on sorrow and happiness and their various meanings. To this end, the writer first explains the concept of sorrow and the related issues such as the causes of sorrow, the factors that remove sorrow, the benefits and effects of sorrow and mystics' reception of it. The paper then deals with the concept of happiness and the related issues such as causes of happiness, factors that bring about permanent happiness, happiness and music, happiness and nature, the advice of Mowlavi for living a happy life, and the benefits of silence. The paper ends with a brief discussion of the concepts from the point of view of mystics.

Persian literature, in particular Persian poetry, underwent deep changes as a result of social and political changes happening in the wake of the Constitutional Revolution and in an attempt to adapt itself to these changes. Clearly such changes did not happen in all countries where Persian is spoken. In Transoxania, modern poetry started at about the same time it started in Iran, but it took a totally different course and the modern poets never achieved the status of Iranian poets. The reason is that Persian poetry in Transoxania was for years influenced by Russian literature and had its ties cut with Persian poetry in Iran. Even Afghan poets took the lead from Transoxania poets who could not achieve a powerful language and style in modern poetry. However, Transoxania poets have succeeded to popularize modern poetry by presenting new themes.

In almost all cultures, plants have been the source of symbolic art. Among such symbols found in imaginative symbolism is the spirit of the plant symbolized by a bird. This symbol is found in the story of the wandering nightingale. The way the protagonist of the story tells his sad story as a bird after he dies becomes meaningful when its symbols are compared with similar myths. Symbolism, as man's most ancient creative thought manifested in myths, art and religion, is rooted in folk stories. Viewed this way, the myth and the symbol could be said to have derived from the same source. Even though the mythical symbolic thought is expressed through symbols, the myth is not only symbolic but explains the symbols as well. In this paper, the writer first presents a brief explanation on the mythical symbols of the bird and the tree in the Persian culture by comparing them with similar symbols in Indo-European cultures, and then explains the symbols of the folk tale "The Wandering Nightingale".

One way to develop a language is to use various procedures to make new words, whether general or specialized. Of these procedures, the most productive are affixation and compounding. The subject of this paper is viewed from three different perspectives: semantic, morphological, and applied. The semantic perspective deals with conceptual semantic issues which are used in the classification of concepts. The morphological perspective deals with the compound and derived examples for each concept and finally the applied perspective deals with methods to use these concepts to make new general or specialized words and terms.